Pictures: Twelve Car-Free City Zones

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Pictures: Twelve Car-Free City Zones

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Exotic spices piled high, the clink of the metalworkers' tools, the famous dye vats of the leather tanners' quarter-the only way to experience Fez (Fès) is by walking its storied medina.

The Moroccan city's central market area is perhaps the world's largest urban car-free zone, but cities on every continent are seeking to restore human bustle and leisurely gait as the prime locomotion of their urban centers. In other words, they're banning motor vehicles.

Of course, city denizens typically walk or take mass transit on the daily jaunts that require drives for their compatriots who live in the suburbs or beyond. It's a large part of the reason that per-person energy use and carbon emissions are relatively low in urban places, and why many people now view cities as the best hope for a sustainable future for the planet.

Enlightened planners around the world have found that closing whole areas to motor traffic has benefits beyond cutting down on pollution. It creates places to saunter, bike, exercise, and just hang out.

Or shop, for those walking through the famed Blue Gate (shown above) of Fez, Morocco's one-time capital and second-largest city. Fez has set itself apart from other older cities of the world because older buildings there have never been destroyed to make way for automobiles.

In the old walled city, there are about 10,000 winding streets, a striking contrast to other Mediterranean cities that have grown beyond their walls. But, as with many cities that ring that sea, many of the secrets of old Fez are hidden. Casual pedestrians will often see dusty, plain walls with creaky doors, behind which are fragrant, colorful gardens, and mosaic-encrusted courtyards, and atriums.

Young people crowd a narrow, shop-lined street in one of Tokyo's remaining "Hokousha Tengoku," or "Hoko-ten." The phrase means "pedestrian paradise."

The most famous of Tokyo's car-free enclaves was the Harajuku, named after the train station adjacent to the shopping promenade. The area's popularity dated back to the period after World War II, when U.S. forces housed soldiers in the area. Japanese youths started to hang out there, to see the exotic American fashions. In latter years, it became the place where so-called Harajuku Girls could parade-often to the sound of street bands-displaying every imaginable look from period-perfect rockabilly, to hip-hop, to goth.

Japanese authorites, concerned about the crowds, in 1998 ended the car-free Sundays that reigned for 20 years at Harajuku.

Still, several shopping areas in Tokyo, including in the upscale Ginza section, are closed to cars on Sundays.

The intersection of Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 42nd Street is best known around the world for its scenes of New Year's Eve revelry. But opportunity for street parties-or simply, safe crossing-expanded after New York cut traffic through the "crossroads of the world."

Begun as an experiment, with cars permitted on cross streets and Seventh Avenue, but Broadway traffic-free for five famous midtown blocks, it was a compromise born out of rough experience for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The previous year, the New York state legislature had killed his idea to institute congestion pricing-an $8 fee at the tunnels and bridges-to discourage cars from entering Manhattan at prime times.

Relying on fiat instead of fees, the Times Square pedestrian plaza worked. The city even marshaled GPS data showing the limited car-free area improved midtown traffic flow. But most impressively, it cut injuries to motorists 63 percent and to pedestrians, 35 percent, even though foot traffic increased by 11 percent. Before motor vehicle restrictions, not only did pedestrians have to step lively to cross the streets beneath the neon signs, but sidewalks were so crowded that pedestrians spilled dangerously into the traffic lanes.

There's been a less visible impact on safety, too, for the quarter-million visitors to Times Square each day. Levels of nitrogen oxides, fossil fuel combustion emissions implicated in respiratory disease, have fallen dramatically.

Next year, construction is to begin on a permanent Times Square streetscape called Cool Water, Hot Island, a design based on NASA infrared satellite data, and aimed at reducing the urban heat-island effect.

And there's more car-free and reduced traffic landscape planned in New York: 26 pedestrian plazas are being designed or built. Putting a focus on movement of people rather than cars is a key to Bloomberg's wide-ranging plan to cut the city's carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030.

Photograph by Craig Warga, New York Daily News/Getty Images

Siena, Italy: Cobblestone Enclave

Venice gets most of the attention as Italy's car-free haven. But that's too easy-it has canals instead of streets. And the queen of the Adriatic is hardly free of internal combustion engines. Motorboats roar down the canals, drowning out conversations.

Siena, a Tuscan jewel of 30,000 souls, bans most traffic from its historic center, shown above. Visitors can park on the outskirts, walk or take a bus to the cobblestone streets full of shops, restaurants, and museums.

Everyone heads to the central Piazza del Campo for good reason. The huge clamshell-shaped square, where the twice-yearly Palio horse race takes place, is one of the most splendid public spaces in the world. It's perfect for sauntering with a gelato cone or having a drink in one of the cafes lining the square, and, in general, marveling at how Italians can manage that sense of offhand elegance that eludes so many other places.

Photograph by John Harper, Corbis

Bogotá: Buses, Bicycles, and People

Bogotá, a city of 7 million that had no public transit system as recently as a dozen years ago, was at risk of being choked by traffic before enlightened city leaders took matters into hand.

Much credit goes to Enrique Peñalosa, who declared "war on cars" during his three-year term as mayor of the Colombian capital beginning in 1998. He instituted traffic restrictions that cut rush-hour traffic 40 percent. He persuaded the city council to increase the gasoline tax, dedicating half the revenue to the new TransMilenio bus system (its red vehicles are shown crossing the plaza above), which now serves 500,000 commuters daily. It is viewed as a model of how a city can establish new mass transit service by leveraging investment already made in roads.

Peñalosa spearheaded building of bike paths, now used by an estimated 350,000 cycling commuters daily. The changes built on a tradition that began in the 1980s in Bogotá: "Ciclovía," which literally means "bikeway."

On Sundays and holidays, cars are banned from the city's main roadways and bike riders are royalty. So are skateboarders, joggers, and people just out for a stroll. About 2 million people pour into Bogotá's car-free streets every Sunday.

Peñalosa lost a bid to return to the mayor's office last month. (Analysts said he was hurt by the endorsement of conservative politicians in a violence-marred election won by ex-leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro.) But Peñalosa has traveled around the world advising cities on how to design for people instead of cars. In a 2008 interview with The New York Times, he said he urges cities to focus on building for foot traffic: "When you construct a good sidewalk, you are constructing democracy. A sidewalk is a symbol of equality."

Photograph by Tyrone Turner, National Geographic

Buenos Aires: Fair Winds on Calle Florida

The "good air" that inspired the name of the Argentinian capital is perhaps much diminished since its founding in the early 1500s, but the city long has sought to maintain a respite from car fumes.

Even at the dawn of the automobile age, as far back as 1913-the year that marked the opening of Buenos Aires' subway, the first in South America-the city decreed that portions of Calle Florida would be for pedestrians only.

A 20-block stretch has been fully car free since 1971. Its proximity to the financial center and other attractions means that the street, shown here, has a steady supply of visitors, who come to eat out, see street performers, and shop. The street, a major tourist destination now, wasn't universally popular. Renowned Argentine writer Jorge Luís Borges was one of Calle Florida's most famous residents before his death in 1986. But the blind poet and essayist hated navigating the new planters and other street furniture installed by the municipal government.

Photograph by Bernardo Galmarini, Alamy

Barcelona: Mediterranean Amble

Barri Gotíc, or the old quarter, in Barcelona, seen here at night, is a mostly car-free zone, where visitors can get lost wandering the narrow old streets and alleys, only to encounter wide plazas with gracious old churches, restaurants, and cafes.

At one end is Las Ramblas, a wide avenue that does allow slow-moving motor traffic along narrow side lanes. But the center is a wide, tree-lined pedestrian mall that offers a little of everything-from the requisite South American flute players, to pet stands selling exotic birds, to hustlers and jugglers, to souvenirs. It's one of the proud Catalan city's longest streets, starting out tacky near the harbor and growing more respectable, the eateries more avant-garde, up toward the newer part of the city.

Photograph by Samuel Aranda, Getty Images

Montreal: Sheltered Passage

Montrealers have, since the city's birth in the 1600s, dealt with a harsh climate in style. Winter sports and serious winter gear are two ways, the wealth of bars and cafes to warm up in, another. But the building of the modern metro system in the 1960s gave the city's inhabitants an excuse to dig a way out of the chill.

As office buildings and metro stations went up, the so-called Underground City spread through downtown like a spider's web. It's pretty easy to get lost in the warren of shopping zones, entered via metro entrances, office complexes, symphony spaces, and department stores. What could be a sterile mall-like environment is enlivened by art installations, performances, and the occasional boite, where thirsty Montrealers stop for a quick happy hour drink.

Photograph by Winfield I. Parks, National Geographic

Zürich: Dividends for Those on Foot

Quick! What does the word "Zürich" bring to mind?

Banks, right? Maybe buttoned-up bankers, too. But in fact, a laid-back vibe governs Zürich's central core, with its beer halls, restaurants, and designer shops. Cars are banned or severely limited from such streets as the Bahnhofstrasse, the avenue that goes from the central rail station to the lake.

Without cars, Zürich's residents are free to saunter, shop (yes, and buy expensive Swiss watches almost everywhere), stop at cafes, and in general, enjoy a city that's built to human scale.

Photograph by Arnd Wiegmann, Reuters

Melbourne: A Stroll Down Under

Melbourne's status as a pedestrian-friendly city is due to a happy accident. City planners laid out the Australian city as a grid, but made the spaces from street to street very wide.

To make the huge blocks manageable, builders put lanes in between, for deliveries and to break up some of the grid. In recent decades, city officials and commercial owners have realized the possibilities of those narrower lanes; many of them have been turned over either partially or totally to walkers and the smaller business they frequent. Hence, the proliferation of flower shops, book stores, cafes, and restaurants. In addition, a long stretch of a main downtown artery, Bourke Street, was pedestrianized-the only regular vehicular traffic is one of the city's famed tram lines.

Photograph by Jon Hicks, Corbis

Freiburg: A Choice to Use Less

People amble easily around a public transit stop in Freiburg, a city in southwest Germany that was largely destroyed by bombing in World War II.

Tour guides typically remark on the post-war restoration of the medieval architecture, but more impressive still is the rebuilding of the city in more recent decades to curb energy use.

The move toward green started in the 1970s, when the Baden-Württemberg region began plans to build a nuclear power plant nearby. Freiburg citizen protests and civil disobedience helped to block the project, and the newly energy-aware populace began focusing on steps aimed at conservation.

Strict energy-efficiency standards for new homes, combined heat and power, and solar systems help reduce demand from the electric grid.

And one enclave of 5,000 people, Vauban, is designated as a car-free neighborhood. Households-mainly medium-density apartments-are close to a tram line that connects the neighborhood to Freiburg's city center. More than two-thirds of the households don't even own a car, a rarity in BMW-loving Germany. Vauban residents must certify yearly that they either do not own a car, or that they keep their vehicle in a reserved parking space on the district's periphery. Bikes and walking are the main ways of getting around, and all the typical services are within walking distance. On the streets that permit car traffic, there are such traffic-calming devices as very low speed limits-30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour.

Photograph from Realimage/Alamy

Curitiba: Melding Park and Fast Buses

People lounge in one of the public spaces that have earned renown for Curitiba, in southern Brazil, as one of the greenest cities in the world.

With 16 parks, 14 forested areas and more than 1,000 smaller areas reserved for trees and vegetation, Curitiba is reckoned to have nearly 560 square feet (52 square meters) of green space for every one of its 2 million residents--one of the highest rates in the world for cities. It's especially impressive considering that in 1970, the city was so choked with development and congestion that it had less than 1 square meter of green space per person.

Jaime Lerner, who served three non-consecutive terms as Curitiba mayor beginning in the early 1970s (and was later governor of the state of Parana), spearheaded a series of innovative programs and reforms that helped transform the city. Under his stewardship, the city purchased floodplain for parkland. (The problem of tending all that acreage was sometimes resolved with "municipal sheep" who kept grass in check; the wool was sold to fund children's programs.)

But one of Lerner's most lasting legacies was to de-emphasize the car. Today, a huge swath of downtown is car-free, except for morning deliveries. It is all made possible by the bus rapid transit system his administration helped launch.

With a series of express lanes dedicated to buses only, the system is as fast and reliable as any underground subway--with arrivals as frequent as every 90 seconds in some areas. Fares are cheap, simple, and subsidized by workplaces. As a result, even though the relatively wealthy city has one of the highest automobile ownership rates in Brazil, about 70 percent of Curitiba's commuters use public transit. Fuel consumption is below average compared to other urban areas, and the city's air is the cleanest among cities in Brazil.

Lerner has spoken around the world, including in a popular TED talk. on the importance of tapping the potential of urban planning. "Cities are not the problem," Lerner says. "They are the solution."